After graduating in 1996, I had officially become a therapist. But that alone wasn’t the milestone. The deeper truth is this: I was now helping others with the very issues that once defined me.
I began my post-graduate career at Brynn Marr Psychiatric Hospital, then worked briefly at two public mental health agencies. And while each role had moments of meaning—particularly the work I did directly with clients—it became clear that the settings themselves didn’t always align with my values. Bureaucracy, insurance limitations, and profit motives left little room for the kind of deep, relational work that had drawn me to this field in the first place.
So, I made a leap that once would have seemed impossible: I started a private psychotherapy practice.
Chris Hauge—my longtime mentor—was instrumental in helping me take that step. He offered his office space when he began scaling back toward retirement, allowing me to rent the space affordably by the hour. With his guidance, I took the necessary steps to get credentialed with insurance providers, set up billing systems, and advertise my services to the community.
And people came.
I began seeing clients for anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and relationship struggles. One client paid out of pocket for help with weight loss. Another came to me with questions about communication in his same-sex relationship, wondering whether I’d be comfortable hearing about the details. I was. More than comfortable—I was honored. People were trusting me with their most vulnerable truths. And they were doing so because they could feel that I understood.
Because I did.
What once had been sources of shame—my social phobia, my dating inexperience, my fear of being seen—had now become bridges. Not liabilities. Strengths. I had done the work, and I was continuing to do it. I was in therapy myself, pursuing a form of psychodynamic work rooted in self-awareness, free association, and emotional insight. I didn’t want my past to distort the present—not mine, and certainly not my clients’.
The therapy I offered wasn’t perfect, but it was real. And it mattered.
As my caseload grew, I outgrew the shared office arrangement and moved into my own space. I was fully self-employed, fully licensed, and finally—fully believing in my own capacity to help others heal.
Lynn and I went out to celebrate. It wasn’t just a milestone in my career—it was a moment of quiet triumph. Not flashy. Not loud. Just the two of us, sharing a meal, holding hands across the table, knowing how far we had come.
So much had changed since the days when I thought I had nothing to offer.
Now, I was a therapist with a thriving practice, a deep belief in human healing, and a partner who believed in me even before I did.
And maybe, in helping others become whole, I was continuing to see my value to others.
Preparing an Office for Therapy - A Space of My Own
My private practice had grown faster than I could have imagined. At first, I was renting space by the hour from Chris Hauge—my mentor and supporter—but within a few short months, I was seeing clients nearly full-time. It no longer made sense to rent by the hour. The numbers told the story: I had reached a point where a dedicated space wasn’t just a dream—it was the next step.
With Lynn’s support, I found an office in downtown Wilmington, on Chestnut Street. The rent was $400 a month, which was far less than what I would be paying if I continued renting hourly. Within a month, I had already passed that threshold—and we both knew it was time.
The space was exactly what I needed. It was part of a long hallway of offices in a building shared with other professionals, including a lawyer and a few other therapists. It came with a receptionist, a quiet waiting room, and access to a shared conference room I could book when needed.
Lynn and I jumped right into setting it up. We scoured yard sales for a comfortable couch, picked up pillows to make the space inviting, and bought a desk and chair from Office Depot. It was a whirlwind of practical and emotional preparation. I had never cared much about how things looked, but Lynn did—and thanks to her, the space felt warm, welcoming, and professional. Without her help, I would have been self-conscious, worrying if the space felt right for my clients.
We added a whiteboard for diagrams and notes. I framed my degree, licensure, and hypnosis certification. These weren’t just decorations—they were symbols of a journey that had once felt out of reach. From a young man too anxious to speak in class, I had become someone clients sought out for healing and support.
We also prepared for the full range of needs. I added chairs for potential group sessions and stocked a small toy box for play therapy with children. I didn’t expect a large number of child clients, but I wanted to be ready. I remembered how lost I’d felt during my first internship with kids—and I had since studied play therapy with more intention.
The receptionist was helpful with greeting clients, answering the phone, and handling basic tasks during regular business hours. I kept the more personal aspects—like therapy notes, billing conversations, and scheduling—between me and my clients to maintain confidentiality and control. After hours, I had a key and alarm code, and I often stayed late to see clients who couldn’t come during the day.
And then, suddenly, I was here: practicing full-time in my own space. Not as a student, not as a paraprofessional, not as someone tagging along on someone else’s license.
I was the therapist. The space was mine.
It’s hard to describe what that felt like. Euphoric. Surreal. Joyful. And above all, deeply earned.
Lynn and I celebrated the way we often did: with a quiet dinner out, holding hands across the table, hearts full. I felt like I wanted to hang a metaphorical plaque on the wall of my life—“Here. Here is where it all became real.”
Not long before, I could barely imagine a life like this. Now I was living it.
Before I could become the therapist I was meant to be—or the partner I would become with Lynn—I had to unlearn a great deal of what I thought I knew. Not about others. About myself.
By the mid-90s, I had built something beautiful with Lynn: a home, a deep bond, a shared life. But to understand how I got there, we need to rewind several years. Back to a version of myself that still wasn’t sure I was even allowed to choose my own path. And indeed, I had not even imagined a career in a helping profession when I first started college 1984 with no social skills. The person I was when I started college at 18 would have never imagined the career path I would later pursue.
I had learned so much in college about myself and how to overcome problems that I had when I entered college at 18. The problems at the time seemed to be limited to social anxiety or shyness.
I graduated from Georgia Tech in December 1989 with a degree in engineering—an achievement, on paper. But I’d known for at least two years that I was in the wrong field. I didn’t need a career in formulas and machines. I needed a life that made sense emotionally, spiritually, interpersonally. I needed to be with people, not things.
I had broached the idea of changing majors with my parents. The answer was clear: finish what you started. There was no room for nuance. No consideration of what it might mean to shift directions after investing years in the wrong path. So, I stayed the course. I got the degree. And quietly, I made other plans.
Even then, I knew I wasn’t going to be an engineer. I had already started taking psychology courses, minoring in the subject. I had spent five years in weekly therapy, learning more about myself than I ever did in any lecture hall. I had asked myself the hard questions: Who am I really? What matters to me? What do I want my life to be about?
And I had my answer: I wanted to be a therapist.
When I moved home after graduation, it wasn’t to rest. It was a strategic step. I needed experience in the mental health field—volunteer hours, recommendation letters, something to prove that this new path wasn’t a whim but a calling. I started volunteering at Georgia Regional Hospital, learning from the social work team and quietly confirming that this was the right place for me.
My parents never asked what I was doing. They didn’t ask what I wanted. I wasn’t expecting applause, but I had hoped for something—curiosity, encouragement, a glimmer of pride. What I received instead was silence. Or worse, judgment.
Decades later, my sister would say that I “didn’t do things the right way”—that I owed it to my parents to work as an engineer first before switching fields. As if my life were some kind of debt to be repaid. As if they had invested in me only for the return, not for the person I had become. She said I should’ve worked while getting my graduate degree at night, as though I could simply moonlight my way through a career change that required daytime internships, full-time training, and a complete reorientation of my skills and identity.
The ideas my sister shared just a few years ago were already implied way back in the early ’90s. I just hadn’t let it sink in. I hadn’t yet grasped the full depth of what it meant to be raised in a household where your inner world—your interests, your desires, your truths—didn’t matter.
It was my mother’s voice I heard the most, reminding me that what I wanted was irrelevant. That my dreams were a burden. That my worth was in what I produced or how it made them look, not who I was or what mattered to me. I felt like I was something they wanted to show off - something that they created and not a human being with my own preferences, desires, likes and dislikes, interests and values.
I wasn’t their child so much as their project—something to sculpt, to display, to prove they’d done something right. But I wasn’t a trophy. I was a person. And I wanted to be seen as one
And what made it all the more surreal was that my father—years earlier—had admitted to me that he knew engineering wasn’t the right field for me. He had seen it. He had known. And he said nothing. He had never said anything that could be interpreted as disagreement with my mother. It’s one of the many mysteries of our household: Did he agree with her? Did he simply defer? Did he believe his silence was love?
All I know is that in our home, disagreement didn’t happen. Not openly. Not safely. And now, looking back, I can see just how much that silence cost me.
This reminds me of the many disagreements Lynn and I navigated—openly, honestly—without it ever threatening our love for one another. The contrast is staggering.
Looking back now, I realize that what I needed from my family wasn’t financial support. I found my own way to pay for graduate school through Stafford Loans, as many students do. What I needed was interest. Respect. A sense that my future, and my happiness, mattered.
But it didn’t. Not to them.
And that’s what toxic shame does. It teaches you that your needs are unreasonable. That your dreams are indulgent. That wanting something different, something better, something more you, is wrong. Even when your body tells you otherwise. Even when every cell in your being knows you’re meant for something else.
I didn’t ask them to finance my new path. I didn’t eat much. I didn’t take up space. All I needed was room to grow. But even that was too much.
And yet, I grew anyway.
I got the experience I needed. I volunteered. I made connections. I applied to MSW programs with clarity, confidence, and conviction. And when I stepped into my first graduate-level class, I didn’t feel out of place.
I felt like I had finally arrived.
Every client I’ve ever helped owes something to that younger version of me—the one who didn’t give up. The one who refused to live someone else’s life. The one who found the courage to begin again.
And Lynn—she saw all of that. She believed in it. She walked alongside me not just as a partner, but as a witness to my becoming.
The life I had with Lynn felt like the culmination of a lifelong dream. I had a career that was beginning to take shape, but more than that—I had a partner. A family. Even though we couldn’t have children, we were a family. That truth carried weight and meaning.
From the outside, some might have seen our relationship through a distorted lens. But it was the ability to argue, to disagree—and to talk about anything—that made our connection so strong. I don’t remember my parents ever disagreeing about anything, which now seems bizarre to me. It was like they were afraid to have different opinions. That kind of silence doesn’t feel like peace; it feels like avoidance.
My friend Jean, years later, once remarked on how much Lynn and I argued. But he only ever saw the tension—not the tenderness that followed. He never saw the repair, the softness that always came after.
In fact, in one moment that I mentioned earlier, he missed the part where, after a disagreement, I’d handed Lynn a signed copy of his book and said, “Just because we’re fighting doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” Her face softened, and that amused, radiant smile returned—because she couldn’t stay mad.
That was us. That’s what he missed.
We never let distance fester. If Lynn was upset or hurt, I couldn’t stand it—I had to make things right. Once, in a moment of frustration, she asked, “Then why are you with me?” and I blurted out, “I don’t know.” But I caught myself instantly. “I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice clear and without any uncertainty. There were some things I knew for certain and my love for Lynn was one such absolute truth. “I’m with you because I’m in love with you.” Spoken with the solemnity that was both profoundly passionate and yet simultaneously matter of fact - a truth so undeniable as it was almost a contradiction that passion could co-exist with simplistic truth.
Some of our arguments came from the tangled roots of my religious upbringing—beliefs I’d inherited but never questioned. Absolutes I mistook for truth. But Lynn was patient. We didn’t avoid hard conversations. We challenged each other, disagreed out loud, and always found our way back. Our arguments weren’t threats to our love; they were part of how we strengthened it.
Our Home
Our home was a space that reflected who we were. We adopted two cats—Tip and Boo—and Diane even installed a swinging door so they could reach the garage where their litter box was kept. We each had a car, though we parked them outside because we used the garage as a workspace. It had a treadmill, free weights, and even a punching bag that became my occasional outlet, inspired by Gestalt therapy.
We worked together to make the house our own. Diane helped us build bookshelves using stained ladders and a stud finder to anchor them into the wall. We set up a computer station and eventually had cable internet—cutting edge at the time. One room was turned into a cozy guest space for Lynn’s cousins, with a larger television. In the bedroom, we kept a smaller TV near Lynn’s nebulizer and medication equipment, often falling asleep to Star Trek.
We took turns cooking, cleaning, and organizing. Lynn, ever practical, often directed how things should be cleaned, and I was happy to follow. We both handled litter box duties when possible, though I now regret letting Lynn do it at all—it wasn’t healthy for her to be near the dust. At times, I denied the seriousness of her condition. That was something I had to grow through.
I obviously had to mow the lawn and while I didn’t see the same urgency to do this as Lynn did, I respected her desire that it be done - by me.
Serenity and Intimacy
Growing up starved for nurturance, I often craved closeness in ways I couldn’t explain. With Lynn, I found peace in the smallest gestures—resting my head in her lap, letting her caress my forehead, feeling my body finally exhale into someone else’s care.
We hadn’t had sex before we moved in together, but that changed as our life together deepened. I remember asking Lynn, somewhat shyly, to pick out something sexy for Valentine’s Day. She did, and it meant everything. Not just because it aroused me—though it did—but because it showed how deeply she saw me. It wasn’t performative. It was for us.
That’s the thing about our intimacy—it was always new, always unfolding. There was a mystery to it. We weren’t just reenacting some cultural script. We were exploring. Learning. Responding. Lynn didn’t wait for me to initiate every time. And when we didn’t know what the other wanted, we asked, or listened to each other’s bodies.
Our connection was unusually in sync. We rarely faced the awkward imbalance of one person being “in the mood” while the other wasn’t. We just responded—open, mutual, unguarded. Even a glance, a smile, could spark something between us. And it always felt right.
I’d grown up with the idea that men had to lead, that sex was a duty or an obligation. But Lynn and I had none of that. We moved together in rhythm, equal, attuned. We honored each other’s cues, joys, hesitations. And that felt like a kind of healing, too.
She sometimes slept nude, a quiet gesture of closeness and trust. Sometimes I’d hold her breast gently as we fell asleep, feeling peace and desire mix in a quiet kind of bliss. Even then, I’d check to see if she was in the mood and respect her response that might be something like “I need to sleep now, sweetie.”
She wasn’t fragile. But I needed to know I was giving her pleasure, not pain. That mattered more than anything else.
This, I think, is what love should look like. Passion and tenderness. Respect and desire. A home built not just with furniture, but with trust. And each night, a little miracle in the ordinary: we turned toward each other, and found the same warmth waiting there.
There comes a point when you stop trying to explain.
Not because the pain is gone.
Not because the injustice no longer matters.
But because you know who you are.
I am not what they said I was.
I don’t have to win back trust—because I never broke it.
I’ve lived my life by the highest morals: With gentleness. With integrity. With compassion for those who suffer. With respect for others’ boundaries, bodies, and beliefs.
Even when I was invisible, I lived with purpose. Even when I was silenced, I held onto truth.
Even when I was shattered, I chose not to shatter others.
A therapist once wrote that I was a gentle person. She didn’t say it to defend me. She didn’t say it to counter a narrative. She said it because it was the truth.
It still is.
I’ve spent years trying to survive.
But survival isn’t the end of the story.
Now, I want to live.
Not to prove anything—
But because I still have something to give.
There’s a voice in me, buried under layers of pain and shame, that’s slowly growing louder.
It says:
You are not your trauma. You are not what they assumed. You are not the roles others cast you in.
You are a good person with passion and love to give.
You are still here. Still standing. Still healing.
My voice that was mute again in the classrooms growing up had been mute and silent when I found myself standing in front of a judge. Similarly, I hardly said anything to anyone after the devastating events in 2006.
For years, I had carried my shame in silence, believing that no one would ever truly understand. I had wasted time searching for validation from people (my so-called family) who had already shown me who they were—narcissistic, indifferent, incapable of caring. I kept thinking that if I just explained myself the right way, if I just found the perfect words, they would finally see me. They never did.
All that silence had done was bury me deeper in shame. Shame that wasn’t mine to carry. It had never been mine to carry.
Injustice does not resolve itself. It lingers. It poisons. And it does not go away just because the world moves on. I had tried to heal in private, but healing cannot exist in isolation. I could not build a future while hiding from my past. And so, for the first time, I understood—
My tasks allowed me the opportunity to get to know others in a therapeutic setting. Recall that when a person is admitted to the hospital there is a short period of time during which the intake assessment for each department must be completed.
Unlike during my first year when it seemed like they were making work for me to learn as a requirement for an internship, this was a setting where I was being asked to do something that was required by and for the hospital.
This wasn't busywork. If I was asked to complete this, I was being counted on to do this. It was necessary and required. This made me feel so much more useful than during my first year where it was hard to see that I was making a difference. Also, as I said, Chris knew what I was learning from him and through my studies.
Instead of feeling bad about volunteering my knowledge, wisdom, and insights, I saw that what I was offering was valuable information to consider when evaluating what a patient was experiencing and perhaps how they could be helped.
I had mentioned that during my first internship I had some doubts about my competency. I chalked up every "mistake" as a learning experience.
Okay, so during the intake assessments we try to get a lot of information from a patient. Why they are in the hospital as they understand it... what has been going on in their lives... are they married? Do they have children? Can they describe their symptoms and problems? And so on.
The ability to gather information from a person requires building rapport, creating trust, demonstrating empathy and compassion. The quality and nature of what you learn, what information you are able to gather, are a reflection of your skills and talents in this area. It’s also important to ask very open-ended questions as much as possible because the patient knows things that we don’t.
As you can see, I have come a long way from the young man who needed counseling to learn social skills, communication skills, and how to control my anxiety - social anxiety.
I constantly reflected upon how good I felt about having accomplished so much. Over a decade of hard work had been invested in getting me here where I am in my late 20s.
It also seemed that when you do demonstrate respect for others, empathy, and concern, they want to talk about their experiences. That was my observation time and again. Chris recognized my growing talent and eagerness and let me start doing some brief therapy with patients. Because the patients were not in the hospital very long, the therapy had to be brief.
Chris gave me some pointers as to what I might want to do when I sat down with a patient - what kinds of interventions might be helpful. I discussed what I had been learning in my classes and other studies.
What might I do in a session with a patient? Well, if they are dealing with major depression, we could try Cognitive Behavioral techniques where we learn to challenge automatic thoughts that create negative emotions.
With trauma issues, deep relaxation techniques are very helpful in talking about a disturbing event. I would demonstrate or guide a person in the use of guided imagery and deep breathing to create relaxation.
By that time, I was clearly demonstrating empathy and powerful listening skills. I received that kind of feedback from Chris when I turned in notes about my activities, but I also had that impression from the feedback that I received from the patients. I’m not saying they gave me a score on empathy and listening skills but there were so many times when I noticed how much people wanted to share their stories and feelings with me.
There were various opportunities when I was on the unit where patients had a chance to approach me and ask to talk about an issue that had come up in a group or from our earlier conversation when I did the intake assessment for example. Sometimes all I did was just listen with empathy. The experience of being in the hospital is not likely to be a pleasant experience.
This kind of listening may not sound like a technique but in the psychological theories that were developed by Carl Rogers, unconditional positive regard and empathy are valuable tools.
I would tell them when I met with them for therapy that I was going to write up notes about what we discussed in therapy to see if it could be helpful to others who might be offering treatment for them. I instinctually felt that I could and would offer to let them tell me something and ask that it not be recorded in the notes.
Gender issues were never relevant. I mean the fact that I was male was not a factor in a patient choosing to disclose any details about what they had experienced. Sometimes you might think that a woman might only talk to another woman about something traumatic, especially if they were victimized by a man.
What probably intrigued me the most was the experiences that people with schizophrenia or psychotic disorders might be having. I thought that if I could demonstrate empathy, understanding, and compassion, and be able to help people struggling with these issues that would be something amazing.
In seeking to help someone with a psychotic disorder, treatment might include active listening which means summarizing or rephrasing what someone just said to see if we can understand one another. That connection is so important. It’s sad but some people with schizophrenia will develop serious problems with communication and what they say might not make any sense. I believed I was making a difference by listening and trying to understand.
There is a great deal of research that demonstrates a genetic predisposition for various psychiatric disorders. However, it seems from my own experience that being confronted with major life stressors, even stressors that might not seem like traumatic events, and any person can develop a range of different symptoms – hopefully, that is temporary.
I did file away the observation that so many people were coming to the survivor groups, even though trauma was not an issue that necessarily had an impact on why they were admitted to the hospital.
Often Chris was present in the group sessions even when he allowed me to lead the group. I would talk about relaxation techniques as Chris had done. I would employ the kinds of guided imagery exercises that were used in the groups that Chris led, meaning, I invited them to follow along with my suggestions or guidance.
I know that I have covered a great deal here and may not have been overly specific when describing theories and techniques or what I specifically did. I'm not trying to give psychology or psychotherapy lessons, per se... but I will go into greater detail later in the book.
I dedicate this chapter to my dear friend Thomas Childs, who continues to live in me and in my memories of a very important part of my life. There is a Thomas-sized hole in me that I will never fill in; it's my way of keeping him alive.
I took the photograph of Thomas above in 2008 down by the Cape Fear River near the Battleship.
Sadly, Thomas passed away in 2010, or he would be writing a recommendation for this book. He would recommend this like he recommended my poetry collection, which you can find on Wattpad also - it's called "What Really Matters."
Just like he did for that book, he would say that he is "honored to be asked by me to recommend that you read this." Trust me. I know my friend.
Some of my most meaningful and lasting relationships of mine were formed beginning in the early 1990s. Second, only to Lynn and Celta, was my friend Thomas Childs and my second wife who hasn't been introduced yet. Obviously, my connection to Lynn had a romantic component that was lacking in all other types of friendships such as my friendship with Thomas. However, that doesn't exclude him from being considered a part of my family.
As I write this, I am thinking of the song Empty Garden by Elton John. The lines that stand out are "a gardener like that one, no one can replace... and I've been knocking... most of the day...and I've been calling."
This was a time when I felt really connected to a group of people - a social circle. That being said, some of us really clicked. Thomas was one such person in particular with whom I felt really comfortable. We felt a sense of belonging to each other. This was my family. I felt at home in this life that I had.
It's amazing when you can sit down together and not worry about stilted conversations. Not worry about what you should say. Not worry about if you are okay or not. Not worry about whether you made the grade or are good enough.
I could talk to Thomas on the phone for hours when we connected sometime after I had been through my own dark time, or dark night of the soul as it were. I wish I had reached out to Thomas during those dark years. We could have supported each other.
Lynn had wished I kept in touch with our friends when she became ill in 2000. I felt like I had abandoned my friends. For those dark years that began in 2000 and lasted until sometime in 2006, I tried to make it on my own.
That was the biggest mistake I ever made in life!
Then in late 2006 or early 2007, I came down to Wilmington from Chapel Hill. I met Jean - a mutual friend - at the bus station and I asked about Thomas.
We picked up as if no time had passed. I would speak for hours on the phone with my dear friend. We had the same interests of course and so we could find things to share. TV shows or movies that we should watch.
Current events. Our writing. Things to laugh about together. Commentary on things. Philosophical ideas. Reminiscing.
"Oh, dear Thomas, I could have used your help, my friend. It was so hard when Lynn got ill in 2000. She said she wished I had kept in touch. I could have just picked up the phone.
"I was so scared. This wasn't supposed to happen to Lynn at just 34. We had a life planned; it was perfect."
"The biggest mistake was not calling and telling you what was happening, my dear friend."
Instead, I wallowed in the misery of what was happening.
Had I called Thomas, I would have discussed the challenges I was facing in my practice and in my career, as well.
I used to share some of the things I was learning with my friends.
Let me tell you more about this, dear reader. About this part of my story. It's about the importance of friendship.
It's so important in times of stress. Emotional support is key.
We had a social network of friends, as I was saying. This was from the poetry scene. I was part of this group. This was my social life. We felt we were doing something important, together.
Indeed, we were. Thinking. Writing. Sharing ideas. Creative ideas.
Our group included in the beginning, Thomas Childs (my friend), Lynn Krupey (girlfriend, fiancée, wife), Dusty (didn't catch her last name), Jean Jones, David Capps, Jeff Wyatt, (David) DJ Ray. I could live within the sanctuary of these people and the scene, as it were.
There was something comfortable, safe, and meaningful about this reality.
This was our time to become something. I was going to be defined by all of this and the relationships that I was building. I was growing up and forming a family... a family of choice.
Arriving on the Scene and Necessary Balance in Life
I could have been afraid and failed to attend that poetry reading at the Coastline Convention Center in April of 1992, and thought to myself, "I can't read my own poetry in front of others."
What good would it be to show up and be a ghost? What good would it be to sit there and watch others all the while thinking about how I don't fit in?
I can't imagine how my life would have been if I had not come out for this poetry reading that first week. I might not have met Lynn and shared a life with her. I might not have had the confidence to pursue my dreams.
That confidence grew out of the events that happened when I did decide to attend that poetry reading. It demonstrated to me that I could speak in front of a group and be the center of attention. I learned that I had something special to offer to others.
Through my relationships and connections with others back then, my life was transformed. I had not been in a good place before that time when I first arrived in Wilmington. Friendships like I had with Thomas and the relationship I had with Lynn were so valuable and they nurtured something special in me. I was able to give that to others as well.
This book might not have existed and you dear reader, might not have known me at all. I came with ideas about what might or would likely bring me happiness and meaning in life. And that is what I found.
That's what shyness can do. It can paralyze you and prevent you from making the connections.
Yet, I felt a need to share. To give my gifts as Dusty would say. Dusty was the emcee who worked at the Coastline Convention Center.
Dusty said that we were "sharing our gifts." I thought I was sharing something personal. Lynn wrote for herself; I would grow to learn. But Dusty said these were "our gifts." Wow!
Indeed, sharing something of yourself with another is a gift.
Some might say that we were a bunch of idealistic artists, but I had come there with a degree in engineering, which would be the springboard for graduate education in Social Work and toward becoming a Clinical Social Worker.
It might be more accurate to say that I have had values, passions, and interests than to say I was just idealistic.
The creative side of me might have been somewhat aligned with the values that drive a person to pursue a career in social work.
To us who work in the field of mental health, we need the support of others. The work can be rather frustrating. The work can also take a toll on you as you support those who have been hurt by life or harmed by others.
Spending hours with people who are overwhelmed by major depression and anxiety disorders can and does take a toll on you. You need balance and support in life. Emotional support.
In order to be a social worker, I learned social skills and how to deal with what I called shyness. Those same skills allowed me to share myself with others in my personal and social life outside school, training, the job, and everything else.
I wrapped myself in the warmth of the friendships I had formed. Back in the 90s, the welcoming nature of Dusty was always a source of comfort. I could show up for drinks at the Coastline Convention Center if I was feeling overwhelmed and alone, and Dusty would make me feel welcome and expected.
She would seem to have this genuine interest in me and was so glad that I showed up. Later, she would ask about Lynn, of course. I would feel less and less alone but occasionally overwhelmed by things in life.
I remember the warmth of Lynn would envelop me as we sat on the beach at Wrightsville Beach during cold winter nights. That memory would sustain me as well.
Then it was the comfort of a friendship like I had with Thomas. Again, our conversations were so comfortable, and the time together felt comfortable. Not stilted or desperately searching for something to keep the conversation going.
In a larger sense, this was a time and place that I knew was something amazing. Everything seemed so right and comfortable. I knew I was on the right path and that everything was going right.
I had a sense of belonging.
I knew who I was and what I wanted. We as friends would talk about the struggles, challenges, and doubts which existed from time to time in our lives.
Changes in the Late 90s and Into the Next Century
At some point, I regrettably got over-invested in the job beginning in mid-1999. I only allowed time with Lynn and those times when her family came with their kids which I mentioned earlier in this book.
So, unfortunately, I allowed myself to stop spending time with my friends, and my social life of writing and attending poetry readings was not happening. It was a crucial missing piece.
Fast forward to the summer of 2007, and I started visiting the area again. Life in Durham had not been rewarding in any way.
Anyway, on one of those visits back, Jean was having a poetry reading in celebration of a new chapbook of his poetry being released.
This was one of those visits back to the place I had called home. I was happy to see my new friend, Ryan. I was thrilled to see my new friend, Ana – obviously not the Ana that attacked me. I was thrilled to see Thomas and Jean. I was happy to see David Capps (he had been part of the scene back in 1992, though he was inscrutable to me).
Here is a video of Ana Ribeiro reading poetry at the Word Salad Poetry Magazine Event in Wilmington in October of 2009. In the video, we are at the lounge where I saw Lynn again as described in the next chapter. This is not the same location where Jean was releasing his new chapbook, so it's a different evening than what I am describing.
Here is a video of David Capps reading poetry. He was there this evening that I am describing but the video is from a different evening.
I knew Lynn would be there and so it was a bit surreal. There was no longer a "we" which was what made this surreal. It's hard for me to explain. I felt queasy and I had a knot in my stomach.
This was a reality that I had never envisioned. She had gotten new lungs and so she was still living, but there was no "we."
The autobiography of my life would need to include this reality. Thomas was that glue in that he had been our mutual friend - a dear friend who had been part of "our" shared life together.
He had navigated the roads of time maintaining a relationship with us both. Jeff Wyatt had been a mutual friend as well, but I seemed to sense that he was a bit colder than he had been in the past. I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
Thomas, Lynn, and I had been mutual friends but now there was no "we" that was Lynn and me. This wasn't supposed to happen, and it just felt so uncomfortable for me.
There had been no breakup and things had been so vague and confusing all these years.
Knowing Lynn was going to be there made me tremble, my heart was racing with anxiety. A good bit of alcohol made this only slightly more bearable.
I could sense Lynn nearby while I spoke to David Capps. My face was flush not just from the alcohol. My heart was racing, pounding.
I wanted to find something to say to Lynn with every fiber of my being. But I couldn't do it. I just felt uncomfortable. Lynn and I talked about everything – we even fought and got over it. Thomas and I had not argued nor had Celta and me before that. It seemed to me that being able to get into an argument and get over it, move past was a sign of how much more comfortable I had been with Lynn than anyone else.
This was frustrating so I stepped outside through the side door as people were milling about. I had noticed Thomas step outside. Ana was there too, talking to Thomas. Ana had not been part of the scene in the 90s.
I tried to bring up the topic of my discomfort with Thomas. This wasn't the first time I brought up the topic with him. What could he do? What could he say? I couldn't make sense of this new reality.
I did remember how in the early 2000s, I had enlisted people I met on Facebook to contact Lynn prior to this evening. They heard the story and were moved to call Lynn. She was polite but we never got anywhere.
I was still carrying the weight of profoundly low self-worth. I had no sense of worth as a person and whether we call it shyness or something else, we have to take action, or nothing will happen.
Sadly, Lynn might not have known that I still loved her or was in love with her...but she probably did.
I mean whoever these people were who called her they were moved with such a profound feeling of inspiration to want to connect Lynn and me again.
Life Changes
Later, Thomas had been happy to find out that I met someone else that I was going to marry.
Her name is Elnaz Rezaei Ghalechi (Elee). We got married in Ankara, Turkey. She had been submitting poetry to Word Salad, which was being published by Jean and me. Word Salad Poetry Magazine was started by Lynn and me in 1995. Later, Jean became the co-editor and co-publisher.
Thomas was a brilliant poet as well. I am sure we published some of his poetry.
Elee and I married in November of 2010 and when I got back, I found the news on a voicemail and on Facebook.
My dearest friend Thomas had died. He had died of a heart attack.
When I first heard the news, it didn't register. I had just seen him. I had spoken to him and he was happy for me. We had so much more to discuss!
No!
Elee responded appropriately. She was on the other side of the world and yet she understood better than my own sister. Elee consoled me as anyone would respond to news of this nature.
I started drinking when I heard the news about Thomas. My mind became a smooth flowing river. I thought this was a way to cope but it wasn't. It just made me sick.
Whatever was inside me wanted out and I clutched a table to stay alive. I fell to my knees due to a combination of grief and what the alcohol had done to me.
I had not made it to the funeral. I felt such shame for that. Would I have found the strength to speak to the crowds at his funeral? I think I might have done so. I wasn't the same person I once was but I could and would have had words to say. Or maybe I would have cried and cried.
Both.
It's hard to describe the hole that is left by a dear friend. It's hard to describe friendship and the love that we felt.
For someone like me to be at a loss for words is something in itself! I'm usually rather verbose... but what words can convey the specific things that connect two people and create that comfort among one another?
Had I made it down there, I would have found the words. I would come to feel great shame for years... To not even make it to the funeral of your dearest friend!
Anything I would have said about his brilliance should have been known by anyone there, but I would gladly repeat and confirm it. I can say that he is not gone! He lives in me and can't be taken away as long as I live and can write.
That's what I would tell his family!
That's the point of all these chapters that move between the past and the present... in this single chapter, I've covered events that have spanned eighteen years in this chapter, and each year, month, or day flow around one another in one stream of consciousness full of sound and fury, signifying everything!
What I most wanted to say was something only Thomas would understand. What we had was ours! It was for us and it was epic!
Dear reader, did you expect something less hyperbolic to come from me? You should know me better by now!
Writers like me are loath to employ trite statements that just sound like what you are supposed to say when you speak of someone who has passed. No, when I write, I mean it quite literally and explicitly.
There are so many times in which I have thought, "this reminds me of Thomas," "I would love to talk to Thomas about this" or "I should talk to Thomas about this, he would appreciate it."
The past is there in me. We are all together in that home that Lynn and I shared on Brucemont Dr. in Wilmington... or at a bookstore... maybe a coffee shop down by the Cape Fear River. I am haunted by the ghosts of the past, but that's a good thing!
I'm not going to try to summarize a friendship that began in 1992 and lasted nearly two decades until his death. The formality of a funeral has passed. On such occasions we find the necessary strength and words to speak.
Later, we realize how much was left unsaid and how much cannot be known by anyone besides the one we lost, in this final paragraph of this chapter, that person is Thomas Childs.
It had seemed that cystic fibrosis was about to destroy my entire life, as well as threaten the life of the woman I loved. I feel selfish to say that it was destroying my life. I cannot say that I was dying, not literally. I felt survivor's guilt because of this fact. I felt I didn't have a right to speak about how I was experiencing all of this. That might be part of the reason why I didn't reach out to friends and say, "I need your help" or "I need your support." or "I need to talk."
Lynn had known the devastating pain this would cause me. I just had a hard time thinking about "me." It's ironic that by not focusing on how this was affecting me, I didn't appreciate that this was an emotional, psychological and existential crisis for me.
To be honest, it happened too fast for me to get in to see a psychotherapist or a doctor for help to deal with this. If I had a physical sickness, I would have called my doctor and gotten an appointment in a day or so, maybe a week. With a psychological crisis or sickness that comes on so quickly, we don't think in terms of emergencies that must be addressed immediately.
I was like a walking zombie without Lynn.
She was now staying at her mother's place in Wilmington, the place on Wrightsville Beach.
I was beating up on myself for not keeping the place clean enough for Lynn to feel comfortable living in our home... but in reality, there was more to the story of why Lynn was living with her mother.
I was reflecting on the entire month that and what had happened.
We had two cats and they used the litter box in the garage. Sometimes I would forget to clean that also or before she went into the hospital the second time, I didn't want to do it myself. I had been in denial and struggling to admit to the fact that she could not do the things she used to be able to do.
Every little failure or thing I forgot to do made me feel ashamed. I hadn't been stubbornly refusing to do these things. I hadn't been angry at Lynn for not helping with any of these chores that would have been shared in the past. No, I just was in denial of what was happening and what her inability to do certain things meant.
It might have seemed like an easy calculation, that cleaning the home and doing other things to make it more likely that Lynn could come home is the most obvious thing for me to do but that just wasn't registering as something that was so obvious. Plus, I was terrified that Lynn might die. I kept pushing that thought away. In so doing, I was pushing a part of my reality out of my mind.
My normal capacity for planning and problem solving wasn't working at peak levels, to put it mildly. All the resources within me that had served me and guided me throughout the years were non-functional at this time. It seemed like those faculties had shut down.
We all need help at times in our lives - a supportive person like a therapist, friend, family member.
Dear reader, you might wonder why I could not offer myself the same support and guidance that I might offer a client. You might wonder why I couldn't draw upon my own skills. Up until this point in my life, I would have been able to step back, plan, figure out what I need to do, and then do it.
I would have done something.
I cannot overstate this fact, but I would have done anything imaginable to hold onto the life I had with Lynn – to hold onto any life with Lynn!
We were still in the month of August of 2000.
Clients depended upon me also.
Despite the grievances of those five clients, I had dozens of other clients whose therapy was going along well and things were fairly "normal" in that regard. I felt a responsibility to try to help them.
I couldn't just wallow in the grief and pain of losing Lynn forever. I also didn't know what to expect regarding Lynn's health. I felt powerless to help her so I didn't know what to do.
I had developed a coping mechanism to deal with the issues of being in love with someone who had a terminal disease called cystic fibrosis. I (or maybe we) had lived life as they say "in-the-moment." What else can you do? I mean, whether you are talking about Lynn who had lived with this her whole life all those years before she met me or if you are talking about me knowing in some way that I might not have Lynn forever, we both had to focus on what we had.
That strategy might make the best sense in a way, but it can also lead to denial. I know that this is what I was experiencing in August of 2000. In essence, it was like telling myself "This isn't happening. Everything is fine." But things were not fine. Lynn needed me and I wasn't giving her any sense that I could be there for her.
I wanted and needed to believe that the situation with Lynn living with her mother was temporary. Lynn's mother, Diane had separated from her husband, Bob, and was living down in Wilmington all the time. She had gotten a job as a psychologist in one of the schools.
On about the fourth of September of 2000, I heard Lynn tell me that she might not come back to me. I couldn't even begin to have a "logical" conversation about this because I broke down and started crying.
I was moving through life on autopilot.
I was in denial when I heard those words from Lynn that she might not come back. I thought, "this is not happening."
This is not happening. I could not wrap my mind around the reality of what I was hearing.
I reflected upon the weeks and months before the nightmare had started.
Just a few weeks earlier life had seemed so "normal." We were so in love. I had felt her body next to mine and knew that the love, passion, and romance had not faded at all in all the years we were together. If anything, it had only grown.
We had been so close just weeks earlier. Falling asleep with my arms around her. My heart and breathing synchronized with hers. I had felt such a sense of serenity as she drifted off to sleep. I tried desperately to hold onto that memory and that peace, but I couldn't.
My mind kept trying to conjure imagines and memories of this serenity of falling asleep, our bodies touching... the image of both of us facing the front window in the bedroom.
Her heartbeat and breathing slowed little by little as she transitioned into sleep. That was just a few weeks ago but it felt like the day before.
It might have been the day before but for her disease - cystic fibrosis.
There were other things that were happening in my life, but I was so consumed by the changes in Lynn's health that I could not function as I once had. I had tried to go on coping and working but things were different now.
[Disclaimer: I have used aliases to protect the confidentiality and identity of clients or patients. No other names have been changed.]
I knew that something was happening to me. This was different than what I had ever experienced previously in my life. So far, I described the impact of what was happening to Lynn and what that did to me.
I tried to act like things were going to be okay with Lynn. For a while, we might have thought things could return to normal.
I drove back home on Monday knowing that Lynn was going to be in the hospital for a while.
I tried to return to work thinking I could still do my job. I had an appointment to see a woman and her two children. Both parents were asking me to work with their children because they were going through a difficult divorce. I had been working with both clients, the mother, and father for some time.
Play therapy seemed to be just the thing I needed. I had met with each parent as well.
I had a few other clients that didn't seem to present too many challenges. One was an older woman, named Anne, who was dealing with major depression and some addictions - not to alcohol or drugs but to sex. She wasn't really old at fifty-eight.
Something happened on three separate days in August. I was falling asleep on those days.
This is going to sound strange because I have no factual proof of what was happening, what caused the problems I was having, or why.
Alice just happened to come in during the morning on those three days. Alice had come down from Pennsylvania or Virginia with a guy named John Freifeld. He was practicing therapy without a license, without any credentials. He had not even gone to college other than maybe a community college and he had not studied psychotherapy.
He and I had a falling out earlier around issues related to what he was doing. He was diagnosing people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and it was really messing with people's minds. I had some of them as clients and they thought they might have DID but I was wondering if that was actually the case.
To this day, I have no recollection of what Alice discussed in any of her sessions or what she looked like. I just know that she came down to Wilmington North Carolina with John Freifeld.
I have told this story many times to different therapists so while I do not recall what Alice looked like or what she discussed, I do know the dates and times when she came to meet with me during the year 2000 when this was happening.
She like a few other clients of mine were getting support or treatment from John.
Now, in the 2000s, it's possible for people to be peer support specialists based on their lived experience. John was not my client but I knew from my clients that he didn't have that training or those credentials, either. Maybe he was jealous of me or he just was obsessed with hurting me.
As an aside, I would later learn that he knew that people like me had between $1 Million and $3 Million in liability insurance. This will be an important fact to know later because while he wasn't my client he was very persuasive and so I wondered if he somehow intended to benefit from a civil suit that my clients might bring against me.
Bear with me while we deal with some events that are and were confusing to me as well as disorienting.
So, as I was saying, I remember having an appointment with Alice on this day, two days after I returned from Chapel Hill having seen Lynn. This is important to know because the "sleepiness" I am about to describe would have been more likely on Monday after driving all night.
It was Tuesday, the 8th of August of 2000 when Alice came in during the morning, at 10 AM. I let her go to the office while I used the restroom. I had a big Coca-Cola that I picked up at the convenience store near my office on Chestnut Street in downtown Wilmington. This was the first time that I noticed something unusual happening to me. I had a 32-ounce cup. I remember this because I needed the caffeine that day.
I was unusually tired from driving back from Chapel Hill where Lynn was in the hospital. But that was late Sunday and now this was Tuesday.
I found myself struggling to stay awake! That's all I remember about what happened after Alice came to the office.
Over time I have found that my mind wanted to fill in details about these sessions with Alice but honestly, there is just a blank spot in my memory around everything related to her other than the sense that I became extremely sleepy after she came to see me.
I have memories of going to the men's room and splashing water on my face during this hour with Alice. I thought pacing or cold water would wake me up, but the feeling lingered for hours.
Rebecca came in at 1 PM and laid down on the couch facing the wall perpendicular to me as she always did. She was tall and attractive. She had been coming to me because she had relationship issues - she had been unfaithful with her husband and she thought she needed help with her sexual addiction.
Today, again, I had to get up again and use the restroom to try to wake myself up.
"How could I help anyone if I could not stay awake?" I couldn't think clearly enough to figure out what I should do at this moment.
Vanessa came in the next day. She was one of my clients with DID who had been coming from the Myrtle Beach area. She had just been released from the hospital for treatment related to her condition – DID. Her psychiatrist had made those arrangements.
She had been suicidal, though, for a person with DID, it manifested as a plan by one personality to harm "the others." Yeah, to her or them, they were a system with different people, and the fact that they all shared the same body could be forgotten by one personality or another.
Vanessa, after being released from the hospital, now was frightened that something nefarious had happened to her while she was at the hospital.
She was talking about how some cousins had raped her repeatedly at some point in the past. Sodomized her. Held her down. Again, this was that same day August 8, 2000. It was 3 PM.
One of her personalities, inside, was a teenage boy who went by the name Victor. He liked to cut the body and now he was threatening to kill the body with a gun. I wondered why she had been released if she was still in this state. I was feeling like I was responsible for finding a solution to prevent her from acting on her plans to end her life.
She showed me cuts that Victor had made on her arms and legs. She seemed amused as she described this.
Again, Vanessa spoke about her husband sodomizing her. Ironically, this was what seemed to startle me enough to feel awake finally. The way she described it made it sound like it was a brutal and sadistic form of torture.
"Sodomized," she had said. It echoed in my mind like a sharp, cutting blow to her motionless body.
She said she could not move as her husband did this. She froze. But again, her husband did this despite the fact that she had said it triggered reminders of her trauma.
Yesterday's session with Patricia came rushing back. Patricia had started therapy at the same time as another client with DID had started seeing me. They both had reported that they had known for some time that they had different personalities. Those clients found me in a newspaper advertisement.
That seemed like a lifetime ago – about 18 months had passed.
I would think during this time that it was a good thing that Patricia had never met a few of the other clients that I had with this particular disorder of DID or who reported that this was their disorder. This distinction is important because John who wasn't a mental health professional was diagnosing people with this disorder.
Patricia had no contact with any of my other clients and I knew that John Freifeld didn't know about her.
I had set up a support/therapy group for people with DID but Patricia never attended that group. So, she didn't have the same problems. I would learn that those who attended the group had exchanged phone numbers and were spending time together.
Anyway, Patricia, on Monday, had described how her father had done something disgusting for reasons that were hard to understand it was so offensive. She described an abusive scenario in which he had defecated into the toilet and then pushed her face into the toilet bowl.
This event which she was describing had occurred years ago.
This might be a lot to consider and my reactions at this time were confusing.
We have one character, John Freifeld, doing therapy and diagnosing people with DID. Some of them were clients of mine. And Alice was one of those clients that were sent to me by John.
At the risk of sounding crazy, I wondered if there was a connection between my unusual experiences and John Freifeld seeking to hurt me or, as I will explain later, he would encourage my clients to file a medical malpractice claim against me and to file grievances with my licensure board.
On Monday, August 14th, after spending the weekend with Lynn in the hospital, I was back in the office and Alice came in at 11 AM and Rebecca came in at 1 PM.
I began to wonder if I was somehow experiencing the symptoms of my clients. Was I trying to escape in my mind from the reality of what was happening to Lynn? I mean at the time I was wondering if there was a purpose to what I was experiencing. It was one of those existential questions about suffering.
During the rest of this past week, I was so stressed about what was happening to Lynn. I couldn't sit still. I couldn't sleep. I was tossing and turning. My heart was racing. My stomach was upset almost all the time.
I knew about dissociative disorders. If I was going to zone out in response to something there would have to be a trigger of some sort.
Nothing stood out about last Tuesday and now today, Monday.
This was just nothing like I had ever experienced. There was nothing to which I could compare this experience.
Anyway, the day dragged on and I couldn't shake the feeling.
My thinking and my perceptions were foggy, like looking at the world through a fog.
What is strange is that this was different than the metaphorical fog I felt described the experience of dealing with what was happening to Lynn. My reaction to the experiences of what was happening to Lynn was that I was agitated, anxious, my heart was racing, and I would have trouble sleeping.
Now, today, Monday, I was struggling to stay awake all day.
I had not discussed this with Lynn because I felt she had enough to deal with.
For months and years after this, I would have a powerful sensation - a memory or flashback - where I would see myself walking down a hallway and I would be thinking that the observing me wanted to shout at the vision of myself during this time, "wake up, wake up."
"What are you doing?"
Returning to this Monday in August, after returning from spending time with Lynn in the hospital...
I found myself in the men's room several times trying to wake up and squeezing my hands against my forehead and my face trying to figure out what is happening and to stay awake. I couldn't even focus on a plan as to what I should do about these experiences.
I just walked about like some zombie or a robot. How was it that no one was noticing anything?
Yeah, looking back, I would think I should have stayed home or called someone to get myself "grounded" ... just as I had helped others. My mind wasn't clear enough to do even that when it was happening.
Then the next day would come and I would be so confused about events the prior day. I wasn't sure I had dreamed what happened or if it really happened.
On Thursday, August 17, beginning late in the day it started to happen again. The fog hung over me into Friday. I wanted to say that I couldn't sleep that night, but I actually got home at 6 PM and fell onto the bed asleep.
I had vivid dreams that night. I remembered that snakes were appearing in the dreams... Sinister-looking - a diamondback rattlesnake with an expression that seemed to embody evil itself. That's just what was going through my mind. It was like I was in the presence of something evil because while the face of the snake was not distorted in any way, it had a human expression. I remembered thinking this is what evil would look like.
This was the third incident when my mind was not acting like it normally does.
As I write this, I have a degree of clarity, but it is still foggy. There are some things that I cannot recall.
As an aside, I did write a collection of poems called "Puncture Wounds" with another poet friend of mine in the late 2000s. It was inspired by my experiences with Freifeld and a few others.
My poet friend Jean had said, "maybe you did find yourself in the presence of evil." He was Episcopalian like Celta had been – it's very much like the Catholic faith. He invited me to receive some blessing at Church one day years ago.
I remember Jean had said, "if you believe in one you have to believe in the other." He meant belief in God, who is good implies a belief in Satan and evil itself. Yeah, Freifeld seemed soulless. Like a vampire. The collection "Puncture Wounds" is partially based on the themes and symbolism that go along with the vampire legend.
Reflections
These events, whatever they were, and my behavior during this time have never been explained. I have to live with that knowledge. I wanted to know like everyone else who is in an emotional crisis wants to know what happened and why. These experiences seemed to happen after I had met with Alice but I cannot be certain.
I have NEVER had experiences like this previously or since then. More than two decades have passed and I have no answers.
It wasn't a dissociative disorder because in those cases the experiences must last longer than one month. I had never heard of someone saying that they had a dissociative disorder just one time in their life.
It wasn't a psychotic break because I have never heard of anyone saying that it happened once during a brief period of their life and never again. Usually, a psychotic break is the first of a series of episodes and medication is required.
I've never been on medications for either of these conditions nor have I been diagnosed with a psychotic disorder or a dissociative disorder.
We always have to rule out the influence of mind-altering substances. I am going to qualify my statements in this regard by saying that I have never knowingly used mind-altering illicit drugs or street drugs. I also have no evidence to support the belief that I had been drugged. I cannot say why it would have been done.
At times I have declared this idea that I was drugged, and some people have accepted it as if it were a fact. I merely stated that Alice had the opportunity to put something into my open soda cup.
The limited nature of these episodes also would have been something I would ask clients about to rule out the influence of a mind-altering drug.
There were other ways in which I was acting irrational and confused... making bad decisions. Some of this happened later. But things were never so overwhelmingly strange and bizarre as on three occasions in August of 2000.
This is all I can offer in terms of what I remember and what is lacking from my memory. The lack of any memory of Alice, what she looked like, or what she discussed is also strange and inconsistent with the rest of my experiences.
This section of my book describes events that are dark and horrifying. This marks a radical change in the narrative of the book. Nothing that happened prior to now could have prepared me for the horrors that await.
At the end of the last chapter, I was on top of the world. I certainly would not have wanted anything to change. I would have done anything imaginable to hold onto the life I had with Lynn. I was crazy in love.
My career that I had spent the past sixteen years building was about to come to a sudden, crashing end.
Most of the events described within the chapters of this entire section occurred within one month - August of 2000.
John Freifeld became obsessed with destroying my credibility and my career. He had moved from Virginia to Wilmington and moved in with the first person he referred to me for treatment. He would brainwash some of my clients into thinking that I was the cause for all their problems and why they weren't getting better. That included one client, Sadie, who had successfully completed therapy with me and previously had said she was very satisfied with the care that I had provided.
Freifeld composed a complaint letter to the North Carolina Social Work Certification and Licensure Board (NCSWCLB) on behalf of five of my clients, including the client who had been satisfied with my care when I last met with her for therapy. The complaints were the same, verbatim.
One of the complaints was that I planted false memories of Satanic Ritual Abuse. I had previously looked into how it was that two of my clients had begun to believe that these bizarre things happened to them as children.
Everything that mattered to me was under assault. Lynn's disease suddenly took a turn for the worse. This more than anything was terrifying to me. She was my whole life. I was madly in love with Lynn. She was part of me. We were one body. We were husband and wife.
How do you cope without the one person that connects you to the world and everything meaningful in the world? Whatever success I had found in life was made all the more beautiful and amazing because I could share it with Lynn. Now her life was in jeopardy.
The issues that clients presented to me could be addressed with rational reasoning. That had worked for a while. However, there was no similar way to cope with the loss of the entire life I had built with Lynn. Again, most of the chapters in this section occur within one month of 2000. So, there wasn't time to go ask a therapist for advice or guidance.
Previously, I would ask my colleagues, therapists, psychologists, or my psychoanalyst how I might handle complicated matters that might have an impact on my success as a psychotherapist. Now things were changing too fast - literally from one day to the next. It wasn't clear to me when I should have canceled all appointments with every client.
It would have been easier if I caught a serious illness like a virus in August of 2000. Then I would have known to cancel all appointments for as long as necessary. It's easier to tell when we have something physical happen to us.
